Orbis
by Preety bird
Summary: What does Angel dream of at night when there's nothing left to brood about in the light of day? Rated PG-13 for strong language and for brief mention of mm slash... contains various pairings...


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Title: Orbis 

Pairing: Angel-centric but random pairings through out. Spike/Angel, specifically

Time line: End of season Four Ats

A/N 1: The title, "orbis", means circle in Latin.

A/N 2: The reason I went about writing this is because after a few recent events, I was feeling feverish. To put it simply. I was fighting with my own demons and surreal nightmares and the best way to let them out to play was through Angel.

**Orbis**

He knew that Connor had been extraordinary but he hadn't realized just how extraordinary a "real" boy would be. Connor was nothing but a distant memory. He'd vanished into his quaint little home, into his rich, full life, leaving Angel– nothing. Angel felt as though he only fathered Connor's memories, and he latches onto them like a dying man. The thought that he'd traded on his phantom family to save a blood one made sense at the time. And it still does.

Maybe Connor just grew up too fast. Maybe he was wrong to begin with.

(The surface of the window's ice glazed beneath his splayed fingers. The scene a Christmas card in the making. It seems as though this little film, or moment, is played for his own pleasure. Morbid fascination. Always liked seeing the things he couldn't have. And he has never seen some of the actors before. But one of them, he knows very well. His breath turns to frost as it mingles lazily with the icy wind and his arm falls back to his side.)

The football flies raggedly through the air and Angel manages to catch it before it collides with

his chest.

"You caught it!" Connor runs for him, excitedly, eyes shimmering bluntly blue in the sun.

"You doubted me, boy?" Angel chuckles, getting down on his knees, waiting for the little bundle to knock him off his feet.

Angel catches him from around the waist and spins him in sloppy circles in the air, both of them laughing in little spurts and then toppling into the grass. The grass is wet, and Connor's head is lying gently on his chest. Mirthful eyes of azure questioning those of ancient brown. Endless and deep. So many secrets.

"Will ya always catch me, Dad? Always?"

Angel can't answer him. He can hear himself supplying the proper answer, but the words never make it out of his mouth. Lies. They taste foul and insincere as he swallows them down. False. He wipes his free hand over his dampened cheeks and tenderly strokes the side of Connor's face. Dirt and muck cover his skin and bits of mud are beneath his fingers. Connor's face is painted with messy strokes of mud as well. Baby boy. His Indian prince.

"You can't always save me," Connor whispers reassuringly into his ear. A little boy holding all the answers to the world.

"Sometimes I just gotta fall."

The sky turns a hazy pink and a warm breeze makes the tear tracks on his cheeks uncomfortably cold. Sharp pin-like ends of grass poke into his back and he lets his hand rest idly on his chest, drumming a foreign beat from memory.

It doesn't always end like this. Sometimes the dreams imprint like memories in his mind.

Or they leave him utterly hollow. Connor tended to do that.

"Do you like him, Dad? Is he my uncle too? 'Cause he told me I'm his uncle and I think I'm kinda small for that."

"I don't think so, Connor. He's too annoying to be related to you." He doesn't hate Spike. And he hates that he can feel for him. His reserves of solely disgust and dislike have washed away over the years.

No matter what he does, there will always and forever be a presence there. However insubstantial, however intangible. A niggling sensation that gnaws on his nerves at the most inopportune of times. Spike makes his skin crawl. Makes him want to vomit and plead insanity at the same time. Spill the bible from his lips reverently; tainting the words in acidic crimson.

(The sudden jerk caused him to release the slender hand. The skin was cold and deathly white. Stunned eyes of transparent blue. Innocence. Vulnerability shining through. Susceptibility to the devil dressed in black. )

Spike had almost been employed in a vague personal activity- while he'd remain with Angelus he was in turn a comrade, fighter, lover, the opposing force and even a scapegoat, for Angelus sober knew what lavish doings Angelus drunk might soon be about and he provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust in Spike as the years progressed.

/The harsh wind blisters their face with brutal kisses as they run wildly through the abandoned and deserted London streets, paying no heed to where they're going and laughing maniacally all the while.

Angelus is first to get his guffawing under control as he bonelessly slides down an alley wall. Spike hiccups slightly and plummets next to him with a heavy thump. Drunk with power. Drunk with blood.

He deliberately rests one of his hands on Spike's thigh. Kneading the hard flesh in precise, circular motions and staring intently at his silent companion. Tiny, soothing circles. Watching emotions flicker across an expressionless face. Emotions that shouldn't show and are quickly forced below a safer surface of likeability. What's hidden cannot be seen.

Angelus, however, is not deterred. The gentle motion of his hand ceases and he ghosts his fingertips up towards Spike's face. Cupping the neck just as delicately and pressing his lips to Spike's. The figure in his embrace is unresponsive for all of a second before Spike pushes back with teeth and greedy hands. The kiss is brutal–a fiercely animalistic show of teeth and tongue.

"We can't. 'S wrong."

"Since when do I ever care about wrong an' right, Will?"

"I don't want t–"

"But ye will, boy."

"Wrong," Spike manages to fatally whisper against his lips as Angelus convinces him of how good this wrong can feel. How right a wrong can be. Sharp intakes of breath cut like knives through the air. Guttural sounds echo in the streets and reverberate off the alley walls. So many secrets lie at every corner street./

Angel sees the night scene as though depicted by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lusterless moon. In the foreground two haggard men in tattered clothes are walking along the cobbled sidewalk with a would-be stretcher, on which lies the prone figure of a woman in a soft lavender dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. High class. Droplets of blood trailing solemnly down her fingers and peppering the floor. Gravely the men turn in at a small house–the wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name and no one cares.

Building a mystery in itself. Because Spike is a mystery and he's a saint. He's Angel's fatum, destiny. Little fatum boy that glitters for him like the stars and burns him worse than lava. He stings and he heals. The worst disease and most remarkable cure.

Buffy told him that during the last moment of the Battle, when Spike pleaded her to leave, that he was smiling as he was lit aflame. Like a fireworks display and Spike the final attraction. He always liked to smile a lot. She said she could feel his soul while she grasped his hand and Angel wonders how that felt. Did it burn as badly as his? Or was his special? She'd laughed, as she'd said this, diamond glistening in her eyes, and Angel believed her. But when he dreams about him every night, Spike doesn't look too happy then. He's not smiling. When the yellow engulfs the crystal blue of his eyes, he can hear what he's thinking.

He died alone. And what a pity that eternity's just a glamorous word.

He hasn't seen Buffy smile in some time. She's beautiful when she smiles. If all of the world and the sun were to crash and burn, she'd light it right back up in an instant. She shined incandescently for him. Some bright, new holy light. He wanted to smother her glow, and shine through her. See if tiny bits of her would stick to him like tape. Peel off the layers she wore and glue it back on top of his skin. Different. Treasure the one thing she had to offer. A heart worth breaking.

"You don't think I should tie this around her hair? It's kinda plain like this, Dru."

"No, Slayer. Ms. Edith doesn't like to have her hair cast in a pony."

And then there's Dru. The negatives he has never quite managed to throw away. Though he has the pictures glaring at him in perfect clarity, he keeps her still. She holds so much resemblance to an intricately screwed up portrait he'd seen as a boy. The lady in the portrait looked stunned with horror. Raped, in sense. Dru.

But the dark suits her, too. She can still shine through regardless.

"All the sparkles fade when her hair is cast in a net." Buffy pouts unconsciously. She fixes the pink ruffles around her morning dress and plays with the hem. The doll isn't pretty enough. She's ugly and sickly antique. There's faded cracks across the porcelain face. Not quite new and still not old. The urge to crush the doll's face in her hands is compelling. She wants to watch her fist bleed while bits of porcelain embed in her skin. Marking perfection. Tainting, maiming. Never permanent.

"Don't fret, pet. I'll let you comb the stars out of her hair. She's a dirty girl, she is."

Buffy suddenly notices Angel and looks at him in visible confusion, meanings and words tumbling out of her eyes and blooming like a newly born rose for him to crumple. Things he can't grasp. Too many meanings. She begins laughing pointlessly. A gentle flutter. Surprised. Unexpected. She was expecting this from him. She flounces over to Dru, kisses her on the cheek in rhapsody and snatches the doll from her hands. She dances in circles around the room, implying that there is some music playing. Something only she can hear.

Dru scowls condescendingly and stands up. She stretches her arms high above her head and closes her eyes, praying for a miracle. Or maybe the Armageddon, if she's lucky. A cheerful square of light colors her skin snow white. She laughs, an absurd, charming little laugh, that reveals the subtle wrinkles around her eyes a startling gold.

He can feel Buffy twirling around them, but it's like he's viewing things through a kaleidoscope. Memories. Colors. Textures and emotions all immersed into this one moment.

Vivid green eyes hypnotize him. Many things to tell. Hushed. Whispers. She knows. _Pray tell your secrets, son? You defy the Lord with your tongue? _It's all fleeting.Nothing's the same.

"Do you think I'm crazy, Angel?"

She can paint pictures out of cigarette ash. Turn blood to wine. And still, he has never seen her before. A whore begging frantically. A nun spluttering the Book. _Crazy bitch_, he remembers.

He reaches out his hand, unsurely, and palms her face.

"You're just as sane as I am, Dru," he whispers gravely. The task has finally changed. He's the one with the answer now. Curse the crazy while he still can. See if she can rhyme for him like before.

A coquettish giggle softens the intensity of her eyes. All childishness vanished. Polished clean. Seriousness a foreign expression.

"Then that's not very sane at all, is it, sweets?"

Buffy has dropped the doll forlornly on the floor. Vacant eyes of a fiery red judging them suspiciously. Ms. Edith is not so pretty when she cries. Blood tears travel down her dusty cheeks and splash the ground an auburn shade.

They stand in a little circle only made for three, and their fingers lace hesitantly with a mind of their own. That's all the reassurance Angel needs.

The holocaust is complete.

/He thinks about letting go. He has balled up his fists, knuckles turning skeletal white and then there's Darla, there's old fatum sitting on the next bed, he's looking at him with his piercing eyes, Angel wants to break down completely at the sight of him. When Wes walks in Angel can't and wont tell him what he's crying about. All he knows is that the world has gone insane and that he wants a shot of something and eventually Fred walks in with Cordelia to tranquilize him and the last thing he remembers before he passes out is fatum boy, old fucking fatum boy sitting there on the next bed with his white hands in his leather lap, sitting there and watching him.

According to some of the things he'd read before, old fatum in his black jeans and t-shirt was "an externalized fantasy" that served as a "coping mechanism" to help him deal with his "survivor guilt" and "post-traumatic stress syndrome." So he was a daydream, in other words.

Connor made frequent visits a habit. Angel was simultaneously sure that Connor was going to live forever and die immediately. Connor had already tried dying, and it hadn't worked out so well.

_Aw, Dad, here you go brooding again. Lighten up, yeah? Change of color. Makes the world a...better place? Yeah._

_See, Angel! Now you're embarrassing me! You look like some fogy grandpa–who still has superb muscle definition for his age–and now all you need is a cane. Geez...I'm telling Gunn I change my mind. I can't go out with you two._ _It'll ruin my "Hey! I'm hot!" status._

Wes shakes his head and looks almost apologetic. If he weren't smirking and coughing falsely to suppress his laughter, Angel could have almost sworn he cared. Why is Wes even here? He's supposed to be at the beginning when Connor turned five and learned how to play football and lost his first tooth and learned his first curse word from Gunn. Shoved Angel in a sardine tin and dumped him out to sea, swearing that his real father was Holtz and that Angel was officially demented.

He should have helped save Cordelia as the thing that had infested and rotted her body left her hollow. Surgical wires and hospital equipment clung to her like a Christmas tree.

When Spike burned to a crisp saving a world he never really believed in or cared much for.

Spike's still sitting by his bed and watching him. Studying every detail and every imperfection. Angel's full of them. He knows how long his steady gaze will last. And this is Angel's first night sleeping cozily in his hell accommodation and it just has to end and begin with Spike. Like an orbis. Spike tilts his head slightly as Angel ponders the last thought and looks at him, amused. _It always begins and ends with you_, he seems to be saying. The snark and jab still evident in this simple matter of communication.

Angel makes no reply. Spike only sits there with his blue eyes on him, a Halloween vision in leather black and electrifying yellow. Old fatum is like no ghost in a Hollywood movie, though; you can't see through him, he never changes his shape, never fades away. And although you can see the scattered twist and twine of his hair and barely visible wrinkles on his ancient face, you can't smell him and the one time Angel even thought about touching him he disappeared on him. He was a ghost and his head was the haunted house he lived in. Only every now and then (usually without any warning) his head would vomit him out and he'd have to look at him.

"You're obsessed with him, Angel! I, for one, think it's unhealthy," Buffy petulantly concludes.

She's sitting by Spike. All bubble gum and pigtails. Pink nail polish and lipstick making a smack, smack, smack sound.

"You can shut your gob now, luv. I think Angel knows when another one of his obsessions has bitten him on the arse." Spike can talk to Buffy. Not to him. He lost his innocence the day he was born.

He tries to will the figures and images out of his head and for a moment, all he sees is a sterile white backdrop.

There's so much blood seeping through and he feels arms pulling-reeling-him in. So much blood and he can't help dipping his fingers in and playing it over his skin. Drawing messy red patterns on his chest while he sullies the stark whiteness of the floor with footprints of a contrasting, stronger hue.

Fatum boy is still watching him, expectantly, wondrously, engrossed. Exalted without knowing why. He reaches out with one of his fingers and begins to draw tiny circles on Angel's back.. His touch burns and scalds him. Freezes his insides, slowly and methodically. Angel doesn't bother turning around when the fingers stop gliding over his skin.

The picture is familiar and different. A large orb that covers the expanse of his back and other odd shapes inhabit the inside of the figure. And they're all touching one another, all connected.

Angel wishes that he can see it. He wonders vaguely if this little symbol will remain when the rest of everything so nicely vanishes in wisps of far memories.

He wishes that at least this doesn't disappear. He wants this imprint to last forever.

END

It's been a while that I haven't updated but life hasn't been too nice as of late and so my muse went on a tiny break. Alright, a huge break. When it finally decided it was time for return, it came with this fic in the luggage and being as malleable as I am, I couldn't help but write it.

Thanks for any of you who FB, because this piece took me a really long time to write and is close to my heart.


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